


To Sail the Comet Roads - A Dream

by fresne



Category: Astronomy (Anthropomorfic)
Genre: Anthropomorphic, Other, Space Exploration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-24 08:22:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6147572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fresne/pseuds/fresne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of the largest rockets that was ever built wasn't made for war. </p><p>It was built for the other thing.</p><p>Dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Sail the Comet Roads - A Dream

Eleven is all in pieces, but that doesn't matter. Her dreaming self is coming together.

The Barge carrying her second shell from California loves puns. As they sail through the sweat and Mother's tears locks of the Panama Canal, she says, "I ship the Pacific and the Caribbean." The water levels lap and Eleven moves nearer to the other parts of herself.

Locks are miles away as Eleven's first shell is carried a big easy way down the Mississippi. Miles. But not millions of them.

Super Guppy and Pregnant Guppy roar through the blue. Eleven nestles inside both of them waiting to become.

Soon. Her dreaming self will be together.

People assemble her stack by stack. Working to a common goal. Eleven grows taller than Lady Liberty.

She's the same thing. The yearning to be free.

Finally, Eleven is whole. But she's still attached to her umbilical cord. She has to wait.

Hours pass. They feed her flammable nectar. She drinks eagerly. A caterpillar consuming all she ever will. Ice forms from the cold of it on her skin. Eleven's sides expand and contract with heat and cold. With her breath. She is so very alive in this moment. Tiny souls walk along the red gantry and climb inside her. Bees to a flower. Riders to the chariot. Her people.

Control solemnly reminds her of the story of Phaethon. But Eleven knows how to fly. She's standing on a Titan. On the shoulders of all who came before. Tens of thousands laboring. Millennium dreaming. Millions watching.

Mother is watching.

Time counts backwards.

The water breaks. It rains down on the surface of her birth pad. Soaking it. Keeping her sudden heat from cracking what she's standing on. She explodes up. Her entire body rattles and shakes with the force of her escape. She's doing what she was created to do. She cracks sound. With no regret, she casts aside her first shell as it empties of fuel. Fulfilled. She's not an infant anymore. Her second shell goes too. She's fully grown to a fraction of her size as Mother's blue melts to black.

Mother sings magnetic songs out to her. Eleven sings that she'll be back even as she pushes away. The life inside her is already changing her. Detach. Turn. Softly, softly. Hard click dock with herself. In truth, she is male and female, but she's always a woman to herself.

The pale disk of Mother's tiny Consort grows larger. Small only in perspective.

Eleven calls out.

The Consort sings her own song of welcome. She wants to know why they are coming. Excited for a visit.

Eleven can only give one answer. "To know you."

She holds onto the Consort's gravity, so much weaker than Mother's, and spins around her. The life she cradles uncouples her. She's two. She looks down at her golden spider-self descending. She looks up at her pale seed-self-circling.

It's all up to her now. The lives she cradles have given her complete control. Her golden spider-self delicately makes her way down with radar. Fires tiny bursts as lightly as she can until her people can guide the final touch down. Closer and closer. Until hers are the first feet to set down on the Consort's surface. Delicate toes in fine white powder. She couldn't feel more proud. The clicking heart of her systems thrum with it. The only sound is inside. In waving calls. Life bounds out. A leap.

Mother seems so small and far away. Fragile on the black sky horizon. Eleven aches to see Mother so.

Her people unpack what they've brought. They do what they've come to do. Her spider-self glints a gold smile to see them. Her seed-self smiles down as she dances with the Consort.

They take some love tokens for Mother. Time clicks down.

What took a massive effort to leave Mother is a fraction to lift off from the Consort. Her golden spider-self leaves a flake of herself behind. Rejoins herself for a little while. Softly. Softly. Life floats from self to self. She kisses her golden spider-self goodbye, who swoons into the Consort's embrace. While what is left of Eleven turns towards home.

Eleven feels like a butterfly. Weary from long summer dew sip days. She's so small now. She's all that the life inside her has.

Eleven is a chariot racing in the last long lap. Weary from all her millions mile race. Longing for rest.

Eleven is a ship. Sailing the comet-roads home.

Mother reaches out for Eleven. Almost too hard of an embrace, but Eleven's built for that too. She casts away the commanding part of herself. Pushes away so she can complete the final part of her purpose. The speed of her descent and the heat of Mother's embrace, they cut her off from Control. She and her people know what to do. She softens their fall by reaching out with gossamer to grip Mother's air. Puff like a dandelion seed. Swing. Splash into Mother's wet salt. Waves bob and splash at her. Welcoming her with each dip and slide. For a time, she's a raft on the whale roads. Dolphins call. Until her people come to lift Eleven up.

Hornet holds her steady while ploughing through waves. She wants to know what it was like to go so far. She's a war ship. She has ghosts. She wants to know what an Odyssey for peace is like.

Eleven's so drowsy. She can only say, "A dream," and fall asleep.

She's older now. Eleven's aloft in a museum full of those who have lifted from Mother's skin. She tells her story to children. They chatter excitement when they look at her. She smiles at the stories they call out.

She's achieved what she set out to do.

She hopes they will too.

**Author's Note:**

> I went on a JOCO cruise (combo geekery convention and cruise) to Cape Canaveral. I was struck by the description of the Titan V as alive. Well, and by tears at the concrete of what we'd done. And it seems a story.
> 
> If after reading my fiction here, you would like to read more about me and my writing check out my profile.


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